"Show more leadership" is a lousy CTO development plan when the candidate still needs permission for every decision. The candidate gets more work. The sponsor gets another project delivered, but little evidence of how that person handles a tradeoff they actually own.
If you're the candidate, volunteering harder won't give you spending authority. If you're the sponsor, asking someone to act like an executive while keeping every decision yourself leaves the assignment half-built.
CTO jobs differ by company. Start with what this particular job needs: perhaps choosing investments, handling customer tradeoffs or building an engineering organization. A bigger team isn't, by itself, evidence that someone can decide which work shouldn't be funded.
My recommendation is one bounded assignment, written down before the work starts. Use this contract:
Business outcome: _______
Decision the candidate owns: _______
Spending and risk limits: _______
Decisions retained by sponsor: _______
Review date: _______
The candidate proposes a decision that fills a gap in their experience. The sponsor grants only authority they can delegate, supplies access to the people and information needed, and names what must come back for approval. Keep legally reserved decisions with their proper owner. A blank risk-limit field isn't permission to improvise.
For a hypothetical build-versus-buy assignment, the candidate might own the choice of which vendor to test within an agreed trial budget. The sponsor retains contract signing and approval of production data use. The candidate compares that option with building internally and leaving the current system alone, including staff time, integration and exit costs. If the trial needs more money or access than agreed, it stops for approval.
At the review, compare the original assumptions with what happened. Include the bad calls. A cheaper trial that leaves somebody else with expensive integration work deserves scrutiny. If results aren't observable yet, set another review date rather than declaring the candidate ready.
Use that evidence to choose the next assignment or the support still needed. This is a development practice, not a validated CTO readiness test, and doing it well doesn't guarantee a promotion.
Within the next 48 hours, take this contract to your candidate or sponsor and agree on one bounded assignment.